Kamui's Fears
by Higa
Summary: She's a healer; he's a fighter. There are no words to say when he comes to visit her. Yet, there's something about the orange-haired fella that bothers her. What is it, and will she dare to ask? Will he answer honestly? / Warning: EXTREME OOCNESS. Other than that, please read and enjoy :D


Hey everyone :3 here's another Gintama fanfic! I wrote this while listening to Daisy by Stereo Dive Foundation. Best song ever.

Anyway, I didn't mention the FPV's name, and I'm not intending to. I'll leave it up to your imagination. It can be you, even!

And Kamui will be terribly OOC in this fanfic, my apologies in advance. I think this is something along the lines of what I imagine Kamui to be, or his backstory.

Anyway, please enjoy and leave a review!

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**Kamui's Fears**

**xox**

I had started off as a healer in an ordinary ship. It was a small ship, with a tiny band of fighters. But we were close – a bond formed between comrades. We had started off as just odd patches of people wanting a change. But, as time passed, we got to know each other, and we grew into a close-knit family.

There were four of us. Healers, that is. The 'doctors', or 'nannies', as the fighters used to call us.

Although we hated fixing and tending to the wounds the fighters got after a battle, it gave us a sense of relief and achievement once they healed properly.

For once, life was peaceful.

But that all changed one day, when the Harusame attacked.

They came on board, slashing and kicking past our defences. It was horrible seeing everyone we knew dead. The four of us, 'nannies', huddled in the tiniest corner possible. One of my friends, Mizuki, was crying. She was the youngest, with my following close after.

Her boyfriend was situated outside the door. We all considered him strong, but… the Harusame slashed him down easily.

And it didn't even take the whole lot – just one boy, around my age. He had bright orange hair I'll never forget, his cobalt blue eyes wide and unblinking. Blood was splattered all over his face and covered his arms.

We were terrified. Mizuki was about to let out a scream, but we all clasped a hand over a mouth to prevent her from doing so.

The boy spotted us and covered the room in three large strides.

"Please don't kill us," Mizuki begged. I stared at the boy, judging him.

He was a fighter, but… he wasn't. As ruthless as he was, there was something holding him back. Something that still… lingered in his heart.

He wasn't a heartless cold creature, like the rest.

"They're women," For a moment, I saw something flash in his eyes. Whether it was remembrance, love, I don't know. He turned on his heels. "You better get out of here fast if you want to live."

And then he left the room, probably to go on a bigger killing rampage.

We tried leaving. We stumbled through the blood-stained walls, tears stinging out eyes as we saw our family torn apart right in front of our eyes. There was no avoiding it.

Suddenly, we heard shouts.

They had spotted us.

We were so close to the door, too. We made a mad dash for it, but one of the four got shot down and that's when we stopped. We wanted to help poor Suzume, but we couldn't.

"Don't kill them, Abuto," Came the kid's voice from before. "They could be useful."

The man I assumed was Abuto said, "Good point. They look like doctors."

They took us away from our family. It was painful, helping our enemy day after day.

But although we hated them, I was a healer. And a healer healed people, never mind the kind of people they were.

We got fed little scraps and had uncomfortable beds. But we got used to it.

One of us healers escaped. She ran away whilst the crew was dawdling on Earth. I have no idea where she ran to, or if she survived. I can only hope she did.

Mizuki stayed with me. I didn't think that she had changed, but oh boy, she did. I only found out how much she changed when I got back from showering to see her lying in a pool of blood, gun in hand.

She probably went mad with rage and grief. I don't know myself.

But she left me on my own. With the Harusame.

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I learnt that the name of the guy with orange hair was Kamui. He came in often with cuts and bruises on his body. I taped them all up after treating them. He would always just stare at the ground emotionlessly as I did so.

I didn't like him. But I felt sympathy towards the guy. He was my age, yet he got involved with the battlefield so often.

I noticed that every time he came into my room for treatment, his eyes would seem to sink deeper in a pool or eternal darkness, never to recover. I didn't know what to do to relight the diminishing light of his soul.

So one day, I dared to ask him. "S-sir, what's wrong?"

It was the best I could think of without prodding too much. He didn't seem to reply, just stare at the ground with those lifeless eyes of his.

"Sir, is there something wrong?" I said, louder this time.

Again, I was ignored. Getting frustrated, I prodded him on the back. "KAMUI, WHAT'S WRONG?!"

Finally, his head snapped up. "Yes, doctor?"

"What's wrong?" I asked, still embarrassed that I had said his name.

"Nothing," He answered simply.

I refused to give up. "Uh… your… spine tells me that something is seriously wrong!" I lied. "The alignment is not quite right."

Kamui looked at me, a clumsy smile on his face. "Okay. Well, my spine is lying."

I didn't have anything to say for that, so I bandaged his arms quietly. I noticed the muscles he had, the muscles he shouldn't have had for one his age.

"Why?" I said quietly.

He leaned in, his braid brushing the top of my head. "What?"

"Why?" I repeated. "Why did you join the battlefield at such a young age? You've got so much going for you."

"You're the same age as me," He pointed out.

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, but… I've got nothing going for me anymore."

I decided just this once, to trust in an enemy. Sometimes, it was just easier to blab to a stranger anyway.

"My parents… well, my mum was a murderer, for starters. She killed my baby brother, blamed it on a curtain chord thing. She killed my dad, and she was going to kill me. But I killed her first," I took a deep breath to steady my breathing. "So I had to join the battlefield, since I had nothing left and my foster parents were murderers too. I swear the system is not right."

"But why are you, someone who still has something going for you, someone you might need to protect or someone who protects you, fighting?"

He stared at me, all traces of the smile gone. I felt as if I had just stepped onto a minefield in the nudie.

"You don't understand anything." His voice was cold, uncaring.

I leapt to my feet and punched him in the face, hard. Fury overtook me.

"_I _don't understand anything?! Try me. My second family, a chance of redemption, was _taken away from me!_ By who? Why, the Harusame, of course! Because they feel the need to take away the things that people love and treasure!" I cried. "To make it worse, I'm forced to work here and I have no one there to sympathise because they all got sick of this and _died!_ So don't you dare tell me that _I don't understand anything._ I understand more than you, bastard."

I grabbed him by the collar and punched his face again. I hated the very sight of it. It made me sick, since he was the first Harusame pirate I ever set eyes on.

After a while, my rage subsided. It was replaced with sadness, a feeling of hollowness I would forever hold.

I dabbed at his bleeding nose wordlessly, disposing of the tissue after. I applied cream to the new bruises and cuts he got and covered them with Band-Aids where appropriate.

"Done." I said quietly. I turned my back on him while he left, sliding the door shut behind him softly.

I didn't see him for days. Even when the Harusame left for the huge Earth battle, I didn't receive him as one of my patients. I started to get worried – maybe I had punched him too hard? I didn't even want to consider the other option.

The other option… death.

Day after day, I patched up the endless worn out Amanto that came. It was always raining, too. It was lucky that I was kept inside.

In the occasional sessions where I was free, I sat there and listened to the rain. It soothed my soul.

Then one day, he finally came to visit me.

His hair in a braid as usual, he slid the door open awkwardly. I gestured for him to take a seat, and he did. I checked him over – it was the usual – cuts, bruises, swollen areas.

"Sorry," I choked out as I applied salve to his back. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He asked innocently.

"You know, for… the other day. When I punched you and stuff. I was just… angry. And you happened to be there. Sorry," I chuckled softly at the thought of him being a punching bag.

"Oh, that was okay," He replied. "It didn't hurt."

_Lies._

"Why didn't you stop me?" I asked. "Why… you're strong. You could've stopped me easily."

Kamui just shrugged. "You seemed like you needed it."

"Yeah, on a pillow, maybe. I'm hating myself for having punched you, since… I'm a doctor, not a warrior."

Kamui turned his dull eyes to look at me. "Why can't you be a doctor _and _a warrior?"

"Because it doesn't work that way." I said simply. He left it at that, thankfully. I bandaged his torso in silence.

"My mum," He whispered. It was so soft, I nearly missed it.

"Your… mum?"

"Yeah," He nodded. "Mum… mum was a doctor and a warrior. When I fell down, she would blow the pain away. And when we needed protecting, she was there."

"We?" I queried.

"My sister and I," He answered. He hung his head low, his fringe covering his eyes.

"You have a sister?"

"I… do. But I'm a horrible brother," He said hoarsely. I paused, the bandage hovering centimetres away from completion.

"Why? What did you do?" It probably wasn't helping, I know.

"I left them behind," He said plainly.

"That means you just left the nest, right? That isn't so bad. Everyone does it sometime," I said, trying to lighten the mood.

But he just shook his head. He buried his face in his hands and spoke. "Mum was dying. She… had a sickness. Dad was trying to find a cure, but… he couldn't, not in time. My little sister was too young to understand and while dad was away, I had to tend to mum. Day after day. It was just getting… too cramped. I couldn't stay."

"I left."

I sat down opposite him, dropping the roll of bandages.

"…Oh."

"I joined the Harusame, thought someone could help me. But all they said was, 'We'll help you. When the fight's over.' But the fight is never over. I realised that, ages ago. But I can't leave. Not anymore."

"Ka-"

"My little sister, mum, dad… I don't even know if they're alive anymore," His voice cracked. "I'm not there to be with them, or look after them. For all I know, someone could've bashed them up or something."

"Hey, Kamu-"

"I'm such a rotten brother. I bet Kagura would hate a brother like me. She would probably bash the heck out of me if she sees me. I can't go back, ever…"

"Kamui," I shook his wrist. He didn't look up. "Kamui, it's okay." I soothed, stroking his hair.

'_So the guy does have feelings after all…_'

"I'd love a brother like you," I confessed. "Because… even though you left her, you're thinking about your sister, right? Kagura, was it? I bet Kagura's wishing you go home, right now."

He let out a long sigh. "I'd bet you-"

"How much?" I broke in. "A billion dollars? Well, better start paying up now! Because I'm a girl – I know how girls in general think. She'd be missing you like heck now."

My gaze softened. Kamui, the brave guy that always came in, was just another worried brother.

He was kind of ordinary after all.

Gently, I pried his hands away from his face. "It's okay." I murmured.

Suddenly, his blue eyes, now tainted with a tinge of red, shot up to stare at me. "How can you be sure?"

"How can you be sure that Kagura even _thinks _about me? I haven't received any calls, texts, anything. So how can you be sure?"

I laughed. "First of all, does she even know your number to call or text? And what if she doesn't have a phone?"

He seemed to consider this. "You might be right…"

"See, it isn't so bad after all, right? We can go visit her. She'd be a Yato too, right? Tell me about her. What does she look like? What does she like or doesn't like?" I prodded.

"My information will be about seven years out of date-"

"Don't care."

"Okay well…" Then he started explaining Kagura's features. I closed my eyes and listened to his voice – cautious, wary, then happy and proud, like a parent.

"She's got these gorgeous ocean-blue eyes. They're huge, so innocent… she's innocent. She's also got this amazing orange hair – not dead and rough like mine, but soft. She's like a sunshine. Her smile lights up your world. She's the most precious thing ever," Kamui whispered, a small smile spreading across his features as he recalled the images. "She loves these little bun stuff. It's not an eating bun, but a hair accessory. She used to make me do it for her. She'd sit me down and tell me to split her hair perfectly in the middle, and then tie it into a bun and put the accessory on top, to cover it."

I nodded, the image springing to life.

"And she loves sukonbu. I don't know why – it's so bitter and disgusting. But… she used to love it, and I used to eat it with her, just so she'd feel better. But then she'd complain afterwards about how I stole all her sukonbu." Kamui laughed lightly. "Oh, and at night, she would always come to my room when Mami was asleep. She'd say she had a nightmare, but I could tell she hadn't even fallen asleep in the first place. And she'd curl up into a little ball by my side and snuggle under the blankets."

"She's the most perfect sister ever." He finished.

I managed a small, weak smile. I tried not to cry. "You really miss her, hey?"

Kamui's face fell. "I-"

I dared to reach across and stroke his face. He couldn't stop the look of surprise from spreading across his face.

"It's okay," I cried, a small tear falling from my eyes. "You're- you're not alone. She's thinking of you, I bet you that."

He leant into my hand. "I'm missing her like mad." He admitted.

I spread my arms wide, inviting a hug. He stared at me, confused.

'_I stepped over the line._'

I felt a sense of rejection, but withdrew my arms nonetheless.

"What did you want?" He asked.

"I was asking if you wanted a hug. Never mind," I answered.

"Ask me again," Kamui said.

"What? Why?" I frowned.

"Just… do."

"Do you want a hug, Kamui?" I said, puzzled.

"Gladly."

He engulfed me in the warmest hug ever. It wasn't until I felt warm, small patches that I realised.

_He was crying._

I grinned, feeling tears of my own escape. I hugged him tightly.

"It's going to be okay."

But I don't know whether I was saying it to myself, or to him.

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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Please leave a review, even as a guest of your thoughts, right below! :3


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